The present invention relates to a backup data management system and a backup data management method for managing backup data that is multiplexed between different storage apparatuses in a computer system comprising a plurality of storage apparatuses.
Conventionally, a highly reliable memory apparatus (hereinafter referred to as a “storage apparatus”) has a storage area (hereinafter referred to as a “volume”) in the storage apparatus, and retains a local copy program for creating a replication (hereinafter referred to as a “snapshot”) of the volume in another volume of the storage apparatus.
Nevertheless, there are cases where the storage apparatus becomes unavailable due to failure caused by water damage or the like, or maintenance work. Thus, demanded is a highly available storage system that multiplexes a snapshot of a volume used by a business application between different storage apparatuses so that, when the storage apparatus retaining that volume becomes unavailable, the business application is able to continue business operations with the snapshot of the other storage apparatus, and to enable the restoration (hereinafter referred to as “restore” or “restoration”) of data to the volume used by the business application.
As a method of multiplexing snapshots between different storage apparatuses (hereinafter simply referred to as a “snapshot multiplexing method”), disclosed is a method of remote-copying a volume used by a business application stored in a first storage apparatus to a second storage apparatus, the first storage apparatus local-copying the volume used by the business application in the first storage apparatus, the second storage apparatus local-copying the remote-copied volume in the second storage apparatus, and coinciding the data content and created time of the snapshots created in the respective storage apparatuses (refer to Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2003-242011).
As another snapshot multiplexing method, disclosed is a method of local-copying a volume used by a business application stored in a first storage apparatus to the first storage apparatus, and replicating the local-copied volume in a volume of a second storage apparatus via remote copy (refer to Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2006-48300).